Audition & Subtraction (12 page)

The way he said it, I wondered if maybe he was right.

“Besides,” he added, “it could be worse. If our parents were wolves, they'd chew up our food for us.”

I rolled my eyes, but I smiled, the way I knew he wanted me to. The thought popped in my head—that Aaron was always doing that, making me laugh when I needed it. “You're a good guy, Aaron.”

His cheeks reddened. “Just don't tell anyone.”

I was still smiling as we turned a curve in the road. Then I saw the school lights just above the rooftops and realized we were only a block away. My body tensed again—how had that mile gone by so fast? We crossed the last street and muffled noises grew louder—shouts and hollers and car doors slamming as parents dropped off kids. Music blared from the gym, and I could see the yellow bus that had brought the Ironwood Sparrows—our competition. Somewhere inside, Lori waited, hopefully missing me. Time to see if the plan had worked.

Never once did I stop to wonder if Lori might have been making plans, too.

Aaron and I crossed the parking lot, my gaze fixed on the gym doors. “Eyes on the prize,” as Dad would say. Dad was all into visualization. You pictured good things happening in your mind, and then they happened. He said it worked so well that athletes hired visualization coaches. Now, before every game, Andrew visualized himself throwing strikes—at least, he had before the Beard.

The single, straggly chin hair had grown during the past week, along with the belief that it was somehow responsible for the team's winning streak—now in week two, with four wins. When Andrew's buddies came over, the first thing they'd do is squint at his chin, nod encouragingly, and say, “Dude!” I had a seriously hard time not puking whenever it happened. The hair had darkened and jutted out of his otherwise completely
smooth skin—as if an eyebrow had lost its way. Emily had threatened to yank it, and they'd had a fight about it on our front lawn. Emily didn't want to take the backseat to a hair, and Andrew wasn't changing anything (except
maybe
his underwear), after going seven innings and giving up only two hits in Adobe's big game on Wednesday.

Unless the chin hair could vaporize a certain clarinet player from Dallas, I wasn't too impressed. I was sticking to visualization. If it worked for athletes, why couldn't it work for best friends? So I made my way through the rows of cars and visualized Lori waiting for me at the gym doors. I even visualized exactly what she'd say when she saw me.

“What took you so long? I've been waiting. I sent you a text—didn't you get it?”

I'd shrug.
“Oh yeah. Forgot to text back. You've been forgetting things lately, too.”

Then she'd blush. And she'd realize what she's been doing. And she'd grab my arm and it would be Tay-Lo again, the way it had been every Friday night before Michael moved in.

Thanks to visualization, I knew exactly how it would go.

But when we got to the gym, Lori wasn't there. “You see her?” I asked Aaron.

“Maybe she's waiting inside,” he said.

I pushed through the lobby doors, barely getting in
around the crowds. I strained to see, even jumping to look over heads, but none of the kids hanging out were Lori. Or Michael.

“Let's check concessions,” I called over my shoulder. I wove my way to the far end of the lobby. The concessions table sat near the wall, stacked with the usual candy bars and mints, along with coolers of Gatorade and bottled water.

Kids pressed forward in a crooked line and Steph, our one-and-only oboe player, manned the table. Behind her, Lori and Michael stood together, talking. She laughed at something Michael said and flicked a cube of ice at him. My heart dropped. She hadn't even noticed I wasn't there.

“You okay?”

I looked over. I'd forgotten about Aaron, but he'd come up next to me, his clarinet tucked under one arm.

“No.” Someone bumped me, and I turned to glare. But it was Brandon, and he'd already moved off.

Lori looked up just then and saw me. Her smile widened. “Hey, Tay, there you are. Hey, Aaron,” she added. Then she shrieked and grabbed her back.

Michael grinned. “Paybacks.”

Lori fished a piece of ice out of her shirt. “You're going to suffer for this!”

I blinked hard. So much for visualization. “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. “We're not on concessions until halftime, right?”

She smoothed out her shirt. “Yeah, but there's such a big crowd Mr. Wayne asked for more help.”

“He always asks for more help. I thought we'd hang out.”

She lifted her eyebrows. She'd worn her hair in a French braid again, only she'd left wispy curls by both ears. Blue eye shadow sparkled on her lids, matching her blue lacy top. A new one. For some reason, that stung deep—she was shopping without me now, too?

“You weren't even here,” she said.

I swallowed. This was it. The part where she noticed I had a life of my own. “I walked over with Aaron.”

She shot a look at Michael, and he grinned back at her. “Told you,” he said.

Told her what?

Then Michael leaned forward and fisted his hand so his knuckles faced Aaron. “Nice.”

Nice, WHAT?
Aaron tapped knuckles with him, but then he looked at me and rolled his eyes. “I'm going to put my clarinet down.”

“Yeah, great.” I wanted him gone so I could forget the whole stupid plan. It hadn't gone right, and now Lori and Michael were working concessions and dropping ice down each other's backs and telling secrets.

“Okay,” I said to Lori, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “So you'll get double hours for working pregame and halftime.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “About that.” She glanced at
Michael, then grabbed my wrist. “Back in a sec,” she called over her shoulder.

Then she half dragged me down the hall, ignoring Misa who was yelling, “Tay-Lo!” Lori pulled me around the corner and down another long hall until we'd almost reached the locker area and the roar of noise had dimmed to a rumble.

I took a deep breath and braced myself. If only I knew what I was bracing myself
for.

“So,” she said, “since I'm working now, Michael and I thought we'd skip halftime.” She waved her hand in front of my face. Something flashed blue and black.

“What's that?”

“A bracelet. From Michael.” Her eyes practically danced out of her face. “He wants everyone to know I'm his girlfriend.”

It was a plain black cord with two blue beads that wrapped around her wrist and then tied in a knot. It was cheap and ugly. “Nice,” I said around the lump in my throat.

She ran a finger under the cord. “You know what Michael said earlier? It was something about you.” She took a breath—for dramatic purposes, I was pretty sure.

“He said he thought something was going on with you and Aaron. I said no or you would've told me. And then you showed up with him tonight.”

Now it made sense, the look they'd exchanged when I walked up with Aaron. I should tell her the truth—Aaron
was just a friend. But I paused a second, because she looked so curious. Why shouldn't she have a turn feeling left out and clueless? So I paired a closed-mouth smile with a tiny shrug. “Maybe I haven't told you everything.”

For a second, she looked shocked. And I thought,
There, we're even!

Then she smiled.

Smiled?

“That's awesome!”

“It is?”

Her smile widened and she laughed. “Now we can double-date.”

I choked on a breath of air. “What?”

“You and Aaron, me and Michael. This is so perfect!”

I blinked, trying to think as fast as Lori was talking. But she'd already rushed on.

“Tomorrow night. The movies. My mom said I could only go if it was part of a group. So if you and Aaron come …” She squeezed my wrists. “We can hang out, the four of us. I've got to tell Michael he was right. This is so great!”

In two seconds, she'd disappeared back down the hall. My brain felt like a DVD that kept skipping back a scene.
Double-date?
I closed my eyes, pressing my hands to my temples, but it didn't stop the dizziness. I felt hot. Could I be sick? Could I be hallucinating all this?
Oh please, make this be a terrible dream.
I sagged against the wall, wishing I could go home, bury myself under my comforter, and pretend none of this had happened.

But I couldn't. I straightened and took a shaky breath. I had to find Aaron and ask if he could go to the movies tomorrow night.

But first, I had to tell him we were dating.

Halftime was almost over. Through the open gym doors, I could hear kids chanting the fight song, gearing up for the second half. I'd sold concessions for a while, but there were lots of volunteers tonight, and no one cared when I snuck outside. I needed time to think. A decade would've been nice, but I was only going to have a minute or two. I had to go back inside and find Aaron.

I pulled the edges of my sweater together, glad now that I'd worn it. The night was cool—the gym nothing but a dark shadow behind me. I couldn't see the track field just over the hill, only a flicker of white from the tennis courts off to the right. A few stars were visible now, and a thin moon hung low like a crooked smile.

As if there was anything to smile about.

I wasn't sure where Lori and Michael had gone. Probably out here somewhere, kissing in a dark corner.
Maybe Lori could give Michael an intensely painful canker sore? Okay, so that was worth a smile.

I leaned back against the low brick wall that ran between Dakota Middle School and Tonalea Elementary. I braced myself with my hands and looked up at the sky. The North Star was easy to spot without a telescope—Dad had showed me that. For centuries, people had counted on the North Star to show them the right way.

Me, I'd been happy to follow Lori.

I just never thought I would end up here.

I shouldn't have lied about dating Aaron. But then again … I remembered the excited look on Lori's face, the way she grabbed my wrist.

A cheer erupted from the gym, and the wave of sound reached all the way to my little wall. The second half must have started. I focused on the North Star again, pretending the bluish light was Aaron's face.

“So. Aaron,” I said out loud, testing the words. “You up for a movie tomorrow?”

Even though I tried to sound normal, I didn't. At least, not to my own ears. The whole thing was too weird. I'd never asked a guy out for real. How was I going to ask a guy out for pretend?

My only romantic experience was with Brian Phelps in the sixth grade. We'd gone steady for three days and never actually talked. It was all done through text messages. Including the breakup. Afterward, I didn't know how to act around Brian, so I avoided him.

I didn't want to have to avoid Aaron.

I fixed my eyes on the sky again, and in a much more normal voice, I said, “So. Aaron. I'm hoping you can help me out.”

“With what?”

I shrieked and spun around. Aaron stood there, the red band shirt he'd pulled on for halftime shimmering in the weak light coming from the parking lot.

“You scared me.” I laid a hand on my chest. My heart thudded as loud as a basketball hitting the gym floor.

“How could I scare you?” he asked. “You were talking to me.”

“I didn't know you were there.”

“Then why were you talking to me?”

“Because I—” I blew out a breath and ignored the way his eyebrows had slanted in a confused V. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

“Looking for you.” He worked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “To see how things went with Lori.”

“Oh.” I licked my lips. “Not exactly like I planned.”

“What happened?” He sat down next to me on the wall.

“Well,” I began, “we got into this discussion about boyfriends, and by the end of it, she kind of got the idea you and I are dating.”

He blinked, his lashes a shade darker than his eyes. Confused eyes. “How'd she get that idea?”

I twisted my fingers together. “Because when she asked me if we were, I didn't exactly say we weren't.”

“You told her we're dating?”

“No.”

He paused a second with his mouth halfway open. “So you didn't say we're dating, and you didn't say we're not dating.”

“Exactly.”

“And from that, she decided we're dating?”

I half groaned, half laughed. “I guess Michael said something to her about us being more than friends. Then tonight, you and I walked in together. So she asked me about it, and I let her assume we were—just so she'd know I had secrets, too.”

“She thinks I'm your secret boyfriend?”

“Yep,” I said. “And she's very excited about it. She wants us to go on a double date tomorrow night. To the movies.”

“Huh.”

I wiped my palms on my capris. How could my hands be sweating when the rest of me was cold? And what did “huh” mean? I tried to read his expression, but he tilted his face up to the stars.

I followed his gaze and sighed. I loved how the pinpoints of light looked like freckles on the face of the sky. “Sorry about this,” I said. “I keep trying to fix things, and they end up worse.”

He stretched out his legs. “So why don't you just tell her the truth?”

“What truth?”

“That she's been ditching you and you're mad.”

“Because I want her to figure it out on her own.”

“I don't get that.”

“That's because you're a guy.”

“A guy would tell his buddy to stop being a jerk.”

“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You always tell everyone exactly what you think.”